Wings of Mayonnaise Questions

[GFLA]

Otay .. I recently saw WoH. Great anime (from what I can tell) .. which is
very little since I am just a begginer at Japanese. Anyway .. if anyone
would be so kind as to answer a few questions. [1] who is the girl, and what
are the flyers she is passing out? [2] why did he try to rape her near the
end and why did she not care too much in the morning? hmm let's see .. [4]
who died in the beggining? (another test pilto??) .. welp as you can see I
am kinna lost on this anime .. I guess I really good syopsis would be even
bettrer :) .. thanks.

-SPiFF-

[Michael David Hayden]

Ah, it seems that you did not see it subtitled. Well, in lieu of a full
synopsis (I don't have time), I'll just answer your questions.

1.) The girl (I call her Rini since I can never remember her whole name)
is a deeply religious peasant girl living with her younger sister (I
think). The flyers are invitations to come discuss religion with her at
her house. (I.e.: Shiro just follows the instructions on the flyer to find
her house the first time.)

2.) Why did he rape her? This particular point is of great controversy,
and I can only give you my own particular take on it. By that time in the
movie, Shiro is starting to lose control of everything around him. He
retreats to Rini's house, and, in a moment of weakness, tries to establish
his dominance over something... anything. As for why she shrugged it off
the next morning: I think she realized that Shiro didn't really mean
to hurt her. She knows what kind of crap he's going through, and she
decides that it is more important to support him.

3.) The soldier who died in the beginning was killed in a space-suit
experiment. They don't give details.

[HORN, D K]

In article <2cj7im$b...@terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu>

mbl...@livy.ccs.itd.umich.edu (Michael David Hayden) writes:

>
>In article <2chhj3$m...@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> l...@gnu.ai.mit.edu (GFLA) writes:
>>Otay .. I recently saw WoH. Great anime (from what I can tell) .. which is
>>very little since I am just a begginer at Japanese. Anyway .. if anyone
>>would be so kind as to answer a few questions. [1] who is the girl, and what
>>are the flyers she is passing out? [2] why did he try to rape her near the
>>end and why did she not care too much in the morning? hmm let's see .. [4]
>>who died in the beggining? (another test pilto??) .. welp as you can see I
>>am kinna lost on this anime .. I guess I really good syopsis would be even
>>bettrer :) .. thanks.
>>
>>-SPiFF-
>>
>
>Ah, it seems that you did not see it subtitled. Well, in lieu of a full
>synopsis (I don't have time), I'll just answer your questions.
>
>1.) The girl (I call her Rini since I can never remember her whole name)
>is a deeply religious peasant girl living with her younger sister (I
>think). The flyers are invitations to come discuss religion with her at
>her house. (I.e.: Shiro just follows the instructions on the flyer to find
>her house the first time.)
>

I use the spelling "Leiqunni" (the name is from the Lay of Gilgamesh, for all
you ST:TNG fans out there--that's my favorite episode) which is how it appears
in the book B-CLUB COMPLETED FILE.

>2.) Why did he rape her? This particular point is of great controversy,
>and I can only give you my own particular take on it. By that time in the
>movie, Shiro is starting to lose control of everything around him. He
>retreats to Rini's house, and, in a moment of weakness, tries to establish
>his dominance over something... anything. As for why she shrugged it off
>the next morning: I think she realized that Shiro didn't really mean
>to hurt her. She knows what kind of crap he's going through, and she
>decides that it is more important to support him.
>

Shiro's attempt to rape Leiqunni is, of course, one of the most important
moments in the film. It serves to illuminate the character of both people
involved and, as the B-CLUB book puts it, is "a happening" that is necessary
for the development of Shiro as a person who makes choices on right or wrong.

Shiro's has several "motivations" for trying to rape Leiqunni. First and most
obvious, he has wanted her for most of the film. Second, he is obviously very
disillusioned in her following the scene where she returns from the city and
reads a sermon to Manna. Shiro had run away, in the middle of a press
conference confirming him as a "hero," run away to Leiqunni. It was an
extremely impulsive action--he was in the middle of training, not to mention
a national publicity campaign, and he told no one where he was going. It was
Leiqunni, of course, who gave him the encouragement to volunteer in the first
place, and take action, but it was also Leiqunni (through the gospel she gave
him) who began to make him think about good and evil in society; which
translated into him noticing and being bothered by things that hadn't affected
him before (because, as he said in the beginning "really, I don't want to know"
[about such issues]), like poverty, police brutality, the arms race, and the
image-making tendencies of the media.

I think Shiro must have loved Leiqunni; not only was he attracted to her
physically, but she transformed his life in a profound fashion. She had
almost become his superego, and when he suddenly decided to walk out on his
life, it was only natural that he would come to her for a better way. But
he finds that the details of her life don't seem to bear out what she has
preached before--for instance, Shiro, like Dostoyevsky, throws all his money
out of his pockets to the poor, but he finds out that Leiqunni hoards her
monry in her shoe. And whereas Leiqunni had been his inspiration to take
action to improve the world in the first place, he now finds her preaching a
different gospel to Manna: "Your truths become lies when they reach your
mouth; your good intentions are made evil when they reach your hand. What
can any of you do, outside of prayer?" In other words, you can't do anything
to improve the world; your only hope is to ask for God's intercession. If
that's what she truly thinks, Shiro wonders, what has been the point of
everything he's done since the day he's met her?

And when he throws her down, there is no doubt the overtone that this is the
level she belongs in, with him, since sin is the only action people are
capable of.

"The happening" serves two more purposes in its aftermath. First of all, it
gives Shiro personal knowledge of his own capacity for evil. Until then, it
was something he saw in other people, or as a burden that is carried by
mankind throught its history. But if HONNEAMISE's message can be boiled down
to one word, it is "choice"; that is, we have one whether we admit it or not.
In a sense, it would be "easy," to talk as Shiro does in his last scene, about
our history of violence if he didn't know that it meant him, too--not just
the generals and the politicians. Shiro has become "complete" at the end of
the film in a way that Leiqunni has not; like Leiqunni, he prays on behalf of
the human race, but that is only after he has done everything he can to
advance it himself through his part in bringing about "another chance" for
the human race to get it right, i.e., on the clean slate of space. Of course,
from a technical standpoint, his part in getting himself to orbit was small,
but it came about because of his physical courage in volunteering, and the far
more subtle kind of courage he displayed in continuing to seek knowledge about
the world, and most importantly, about himself. Shiro is ultimately a very
admirable figure, and, fantastic as the circumstances of his story are, the
true nature of the challenge he faced is one we should all live up to.

By the same token, Leiqunni's reaction to the rape reveals the essential
"incompleteness" of herself as a person. She expresses regret that she

"assaulted him"; she is incapable of standing up for herself on an articulate
level. She ran away from home, she lived off her aunt and uncle, she didn't
complain when her power was cut off, she refused to bring suit for the
destruction of her house, and she refused to acknowledge that it was Shiro
who was in the wrong that night, because, as Henry Rollins would say to
Leiqunni, "I think you got a low self-opinion." Look at her miserable face as
she tries to apologize to Shiro; there's nothing he can say to this.
Leiqunni is attuned to the ills of the world in a way other people usually
choose to ignore, and she has perfect faith in God, but none at all in herself.
Toren Smith described her as a "catalyst" who changes Shiro without being
changed herself, but to fully appreciate that, it is necessary to observe
every stage of their reaction together, including the most violent point of
contact between them. "You're such a fine person, and yet I hit you...I never
meant to hurt you" she tells Shiro the morning after; unable to see that he
saw *her* as the ideal, that it was *she* who inspired him.

Shiro goes from being insensate and resigned to changing the world, through
trying to better understand it and his place in it. It could be argued that
Leiqunni remains trapped in a more terrible fashion than Shiro was at the
film's beginning, because she knows, as Shiro didn't want to know, but
remains resigned. She saw Shiro in terms of a dream, her dream (an early
title for the film was not THE WINGS OF HONNEAMISE but THE WINGS OF LEIQUNNI),
able to fly to heaven. What is so bitter is the resonance of their dreams;
look at the scene where Leiqunni looks up at the jet plane while reaping
winter wheat; it is a match to Shiro's recollection before the opening
credits. She is the only one to look up, as she is the only one to look up
again at the film's ending. But Shiro needed Leiqunni as well as Leiqunni's
wings; and she could never see herself as someone who should be needed.
The attempted rape reveals the flaws in Shiro; Leiqunni's reaction to it
confirms the faults in herself.

>3.) The soldier who died in the beginning was killed in a space-suit
>experiment. They don't give details.

Matti tells Shiro at the funeral that his urine collection sack leaked and
a short-circuit electrocuted their "comrade-in-arms," as the General puts it.
It is an indication of the chronically hapless state of the Space Force.

--Carl "So what'cha watc'cha what'cha want?" Horn

[E. Kontei]

In article <16C8C124...@ricevm1.rice.edu>, DH...@ricevm1.rice.edu (HORN, D K) writes:

Save that article. It's one of the best explanations of that scene I've
ever seen. I don't think I can add anything to it.

> Matti tells Shiro at the funeral that his urine collection sack leaked and
> a short-circuit electrocuted their "comrade-in-arms," as the General puts it.
> It is an indication of the chronically hapless state of the Space Force.

That's not too different from things that happened in the American space
program. Gus Grissom and two other atronauts were killed when an electrical
short started a fire in the oxygen-rich environment of the Apollo capsule
they were testing.
--
E n r i q u e C o n t y
Coordinator, Project Zeta
co...@cbnewsl.att.com jes...@ihlpm.att.com
Disclaimer: You're not dealing with AT&T

[E. Kontei]

No, wait. I CAN add something to the article.

> [Leiquinni] is incapable of standing up for herself on an articulate level.

This is not unusual for highly religious people. Because religion teaches
them to put all their faith in God and be subservient to his will, some of
these people actually think that standing up for oneself is a sin of pride,
and one must bear anything bad that happens because "it's the will of God".

This is not common in American culture (which encourages people
to take a stand), but it's a lot more common in latin countries.

[Michael P Collins]

Excerpts from netnews.rec.arts.anime: 21-Nov-93 Re: The Land of Rape and
Ho.. by E. Kon...@cbnewsl.cb.att

> This is not unusual for highly religious people. Because religion teaches
> them to put all their faith in God and be subservient to his will, some of
> these people actually think that standing up for oneself is a sin of pride,
> and one must bear anything bad that happens because "it's the will of God".

I don't know if that's entirely because of her religion. I get the
impression that Leiqunni escaped to her theology because she couldn't
cope with an abusive family life. Personally, it seems more that
Leiquinni was a...for lack of a better term...natural submissive long
before that.

Admittedly, she doesn't exactly espouse the original feel-good theology
either....

Mike Collins,mc...@andrew.cmu.edu
This message copyright 1993, Northstar International-makers of such fine
products as The Instant Nation(tm), The Left Handed Marble(tm) and the
Home Nuclear Reactor (tm). Northstar International-"We Have No Morals".

[HORN, D K]

In article <ggvxhVC00...@andrew.cmu.edu>

Michael P Collins <mc...@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:

>
>Excerpts from netnews.rec.arts.anime: 21-Nov-93 Re: The Land of Rape and
>Ho.. by E. Kon...@cbnewsl.cb.att
>> This is not unusual for highly religious people. Because religion teaches
>> them to put all their faith in God and be subservient to his will, some of
>> these people actually think that standing up for oneself is a sin of pride,
>> and one must bear anything bad that happens because "it's the will of God".
>
>I don't know if that's entirely because of her religion. I get the
>impression that Leiqunni escaped to her theology because she couldn't
>cope with an abusive family life. Personally, it seems more that
>Leiquinni was a...for lack of a better term...natural submissive long
>before that.
>
>Admittedly, she doesn't exactly espouse the original feel-good theology
>either....

Both Conty and Collins make good points. Arrested Development makes a musical
version of Conty's point in "Fishin' For Religion." Collins reminds us that
Leiqunni left her home and took Manna with her because she couldn't stand to
see her parents fight any more. Yamaga said he "made up" the religion in the
film, but it contains concepts common to most of the world's major religions
(God created man, man rebelled against God, man is inherently sinful, the
world is inherently sinful) so, like the other elements of Honneamise's
"culture," it is fairly recognizable to almost any audience. The crucial
difference concerning the film's religion are the different things Shiro and
Leiqunni took from it: it brought him up, it keeps her down. I don't think
Shiro ever develops absolute belief in anything. As he puts it, one should
"compromise on occasion with your God." Even at the end, when he asks the
people of his world from space to give thanks that the human race has reached
here, he says "I don't care how you do it." And his own prayer is only a
fervent request, in the name of no god in particular (in fact, he doesn't
invoke God directly in his own prayer)--he feels no guarantee that it will be
answered--which is, in a way why he made it in the first place. He has done
everything he can, his part, to bring about "another chance" for humanity.

But based on his knowledge of human nature, including of course his own,
Shiro is skeptical of how we're going to deal with this new chance. That is
why he asks for a clear star for "us," the human race in its unending night of
despair (Although both Shiro and Hiroyuki Yamaga are cognizant of our history
of bloodshed, I don't think either regard the human race as evil or joyless.
I think the final name of the film was taken from Japanese pseudo-French;
"homme amis," connoting the comradeship of the Space Force, between Shiro's
gang and between its generations, that finally gets the rocket off the
ground. The film obviously takes pleasure as well as melancholy in its
scenes of drinking, fighting, and womanizing, as well as pride in the art
of engineering [HONNEAMISE is perhaps the first tribute in art to the
engineers and scientists, as opposed to the astronauts, who made it all
possible], the feats of human hands. To put it another way, Shiro/Yamaga are
fans of "human nature" as well as detractors). The "star" is hope; the way
out; the realization that we have a choice. When Shiro started the film, he
didn't know this; it has been a hard road to find out and he prays that
the billions below in literal as well as figurative darkness will also come
to understand that they have a choice. Shiro has not become "one with the
Universe" at the end; this is not 2001. As Barry McGuire put it, "when you
return, it's the same old place." He will have to deal with the same world
he left when he returns. Shiro does not receive God's grace or enlightenment
at the end; he is merely telling the lesson he learned over the course of
the film, when the stage is at last his alone.

You might ask whether Shiro isn't being presumptive to pray on behalf of the
entire human race. He isn't because, just as space, as Shiro says, no longer
belongs only to God, neither anymore does Judgement Day. This is only hinted
at in the film (mainly in the Republic's reaction to the space program) but
a rocket capable of putting a man in space also means an ICBM. The very last
scene in the "march of history" is a mushroom cloud; following that is a shot
of the capsule in orbit; but between them is the hammer on the anvil,
symbolizing our technology. It comes down to choice again, you see--we have
invented this rocket, but it is only good for two things: giving the human
race ages yet to come, or destroying it in thirty minutes. If Shiro's prayer
was to God alone, he would have no need to broadcast it. Perhaps the future
is ultimately in God's hands, but we can make choices in the here-and-now.

--Carl "Thick like a pickle--I'm still gettin' paid" Horn